Opportunity Details | 2023-24 Mussel Monitoring Survey

2023-24 Mussel Monitoring Survey

This winter WDFW’s Toxics-focused Biological Observation System (TBiOS) team is partnering with the Stormwater Action Monitoring (SAM) to evaluate the health of Puget Sound’s nearshore environments, using mussels as our study organism.  Similar projects that used mussels to assess toxic contaminants in nearshore habitats were conducted in the winters of 2012/13 (report here), 2015/16 (report here), 2017/18 (report here), and 2019/20 (report here).  The 2021/22 report is pending.

 

 

For this project WDFW needs volunteers to -

• deploy mussels in anti-predator cages to selected sites during a set of night-time low tides in November/December 2023,
• retrieve the mussel cages during a set of night-time low tides February 2024.

 

WDFW will match volunteers to nearby sites available, provide instructions on how to deploy/retrieve cages, and provide all the necessary equipment.   A Google map of all the mussel sites can be found by following this link.

 

Individuals with laboratory skills willing to drive to Olympia may also volunteer during the laboratory, mussel-processing, phase of this study in March 2024. 

Category:

Department of Fish and Wildlife Volunteer Program